Iraq, Iran and all that deadly Jazz…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
October 24, 2009 – …Now, I know that some of you don’t mind it too much that Iraq has become a satellite of Iran, and that Kurdistan is on its way to become a totally independent region… It is important for the Americans to keep some semblance of something…I will not use the word victory here, because it is SO OBVIOUS that America has failed with a big F in Iraq, be it on the military, political or economic level…America after 6 years of occupation and promises of being welcomed with candies and flowers is still unable to secure a basic minimum of security in any part of Iraq. For me and for any perceptive person, it is absolutely clear that the Iraqi Resistance has foiled the American plan on all levels. And please don’t be so dumb and naive as to assume that the American media will come out and say – Sorry folks, we failed. Things don’t work that way in politics. What America is desperately trying to do on the other hand, is to consolidate its primary agenda for Iraq, i.e the partition along sectarian and ethnic lines and in order for this beast to do so, it needs Iran and its further collaboration. Only then, can the show of troop withdrawal be credible…

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Israel’s Fraudulent Casus Belli
Irish4Palestine
October 24, 2009 – Are UN Sanctions in order here? Israel uses the “peace process” as a casus belli to continue the war on Palestine, and nobody notices??? In the run up to the Goldstone draft Resolution and immediately afterward, Israel took the following position; “Israel has threatened to pull out of Middle East peace talks if Britain and other European nations fail to back the country in a key vote at the United Nations” …

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Iraqi refugees in Chicago: Abandoned. Adrift. Enduring
By James Janega and Antonio Olivo
October 24, 2009 – A safe home. A good job. Stability for their children after years on the run from death threats and the mayhem of war — that is what the Iraqi refugees envisioned when told they were coming to America. Instead, one family is assigned an apartment on Chicago’s North Side so full of cockroaches and filth they couldn’t stay the night. A veterinarian from southern Iraq relies on relatives in Karbala to pay his rent in Chicago, upending the traditional immigrant experience. An Iraqi mother of three, unable to pay her rent with her husband still in the Middle East, finds little help warding off the predatory advances of male acquaintances offering assistance…

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“Racist” BNP leader’s public humiliation masks an ugly truth
Stuart Littlewood
October 24, 2009 – …Griffin’s highly publicized vilification and “flogging” masks an ugly truth – that supporters of the racist regime in Israel are allowed to flourish within our three main political parties, and the appalling blitzkrieg on Gaza still has not persuaded the leaders to shut down their respective Friends of Israel groups. It is nine months since the “Cast Lead” killing spree. The humanitarian crisis continues and the Zionist entity they call “friend” has not relaxed its vicious blockade. Even the Goldstone report highlighting Israel’s war crimes fails to move them to do the decent thing. Britain’s two most senior politicians, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and leader of the opposition David Cameron, are locked firmly into a supporting role. Brown, like Blair before him, accepted an invitation to become a patron of the Jewish National Fund in the UK. Set up to help establish a Jews-only state in Arab Palestine, the JNF’s constitution requires it to benefit Jews exclusively, thereby promoting and implementing policies that discriminate against the Arab population of Israel..

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Cyber Resistance
Dahr Jamail
October 24, 2009 – If technology has transformed warfare into a spectacle of shock and awe, its contribution to the cause of dissent has been no less remarkable. It has enabled solidarities across borders and facilitated networks and forums dedicated to impartial communication of ground realities beyond the sanitized projection of mainstream news. True, technological advances have not brought an end to either occupation, but it has certainly helped alternative voices and views to be heard. During the Vietnam War, over 100 underground newspapers, run by soldiers themselves, sprouted across the United States. The modern version of this has taken root within the Internet, largely in the form of blogs…

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Self-defence stories from Gaza
By Paul J. Balles
October 24, 2009 – According to Amnesty International, some 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the 22-day Israeli offensive between 27 December 2008 and 17 January 2009, which agrees broadly with Palestinian figures. More than 900 of these were civilians, including 300 children and 115 women. Two-year old Amal Abed Rabbo, one of the 300 children casualties, died in an Israeli attack outside her house in the village of Izbit Abed Rabbo, Gaza, on 7 January 2009. The UN Human Rights Council’s Goldstone report called Israel’s military assault on Gaza “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever-increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability”. Gabriela Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, quickly rejected the report, saying it failed to take into account that the operation was in “self-defence”…

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Western export of the ballot box elixir is pure hubris
The absurd expectation heaped on Afghanistan’s election is a fig leaf for leaders seduced by the allure of military power
Simon Jenkins
October 24, 2009 – Why can’t Afghanistan be more like Sweden? It is insufferable that this miserable statelet can reject liberal democracy despite the efforts of 70,000 Nato and NGO staff kicking their heels in Kabul’s dust for eight years. We have blown $230bn of US and UK taxpayers’ money and left 1,463 soldiers dead. Everything has been tried, from gender awareness courses to carpet-bombing Tora Bora. Thousands of Afghans have been massacred. Yet still the wretches won’t co-operate. They even fiddle elections. That sums up the west’s response to the election staged last August by the Afghan ruler, Hamid Karzai…

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Report: 40,000 more troops for Afghanistan ‘remains on the table’
Stephen C. Webster
October 24, 2009 – The Obama administration’s forthcoming strategy in the occupation of Afghanistan is being reconciled from several proposals by the Department of Defense and the vice president’s office. Among them, General Stanley McChrystal’s proposal to send another 40,000 U.S. soldiers into the country “remains on the table,” The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday. “One scenario under consideration, according to an official familiar with the deliberations, calls for deploying 10,000 to 20,000 U.S. reinforcements primarily to ramp up the training of the Afghan security forces,” the paper noted. “But Gen. McChrystal’s request for 40,000 troops also remains on the table.”

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Video: Women Under Occupation
AICvideo
October 24, 2009 – The Israeli occupation affects the daily lives of Palestinians, especially for women. The deterioration of the economic, social and health conditions in Palestine is directly linked with violence inside the home. The militarization of space and restrictions imposed upon women is causing a growing crisis in violence against women. Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, university Professor and author of recent book Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East, speaks about the ordeals of Palestinian women under occupation…

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Obama Every Bit as Bad as Bush/Cheney on Patriot Act
By Nat Hentoff
October 24, 2009 – While battling the FBI’s expanded surveillance guidelines, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., also revealed (Daily Kos, Oct. 8) that in the Senate Judiciary Committee review of the Patriot Act (also Oct. 8), Republicans protecting the Act were joined, in a closed-door classified session, by Obama officials with amendments further preserving it. Then, in a public session, all but three Democrats voted for a watered-down “compromise” bill by Patrick Leahy and Diane Feinstein…

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If this is progress, what would an Afghan disaster look like?
Tony Karon
October 24, 2009 – When the US senator John Kerry stood side by side with Hamid Karzai after coaxing and cajoling the Afghan president into a presidential election run-off, the US media hailed it as a sign of progress. In fact, it served notice that the Obama administration’s Afghanistan strategy is a shambles. Fearing a quagmire, Mr Obama has hesitated on a request by his handpicked commander, Gen Stanley McChrystal, to send 40,000 extra troops simply to hold the line against the Taliban. Officials began to argue that the US could not send reinforcements until the Afghan election debacle was resolved. The counterinsurgency strategy required a legitimate Afghan government, the argument ran, and Mr Karzai had won a first-round victory only because of more than a million fraudulent ballots. Maybe so, but the argument is a red herring. Sure, those ballots were fraudulent, but the far more significant threat to the legitimacy of the next government was that more than 12 million of Afghanistan’s approximately 17 million voters stayed away from the polls…

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Taliban call for Afghan vote boycott
SARDAR AHMAD
October 24, 2009 – The Taliban called on Saturday for a boycott of the upcoming run-off in Afghanistan’s fraud-tainted presidential election as top US and UN envoys predicted fewer problems with the second round. While Western military chiefs say they can ensure the November 7 poll is conducted in a peaceful atmosphere, the warning from the Taliban threatens to further deflate turnout, which was less than 40 percent first time round. “The Islamic emirate (of Afghanistan) once again informs all the people that no one should participate in this American process and should boycott the process,” said a Taliban statement emailed to AFP…

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Israel wants Berlin to finance two new warships
TheLocal.de
October 24, 2009 – Israel is hoping to order two modern German-made warships without paying for them, daily Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Friday. Sources within the German government told the paper that Israel wants the Berlin to finance the MEKO corvettes, a sum that would reportedly reach hundreds of millions of euros. The paper reported that the government has not yet reacted to Israel’s request. But “influential politicians from northern Germany,” where the shipbuilding industry is suffering from the global economic downturn, are apparently supportive in the interest of keeping German shipyards in business…

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PFLP: How can Abbas call elections and continue unity talks?
Ma’an News
October 24, 2009 – …At-Taher refuted claims by Hamas that the decree was illegal, calling it “constitutional,” but worrying it was being used to solve a problem it could not. “The fact is that there is an authority in Gaza and another authority in Ramallah, there’s a deep division in the Palestinian arena and there can’t be elections without the national reconciliation,” he said. The PFLP official demanded more effort be expended to return to comprehensive dialogue so the division can end and elections go forward successfully…

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Ni’lin demonstrates against the Apartheid Wall
International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
October 24, 2009 – More than 200 demonstrators attended the weekly demonstration against the Apartheid Wall in Ni’lin today. This week the demonstration was calling for Palestinian unity and the protestors demanded a stop to all factional rivalry and unite against the occupation. ‘The Palestinian people are one, the Palestinian people all live under occupation and we can only over come if we stand strong as one!’. This week there was a large number of international solidarity activists, who are currently in Palestine for olive harvest. There was a delegation from the Norwegian foundation BLETZ and around 20 to 30 other internationals from different countries, all carrying signs advocating for the Palestinian and calling to end the occupation…

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